The widow of a murdered French envoy in Rome pleading for her life: a man tells her "We are Romans, we do not kill women". Etching after J.D. Schubert.

Nicolas Jean Hugou de Bassville (Basseville) and Major La Flotte were French supporters of the Revolution who were sent to Rome in 1793 to try to persuade the Pope to recognize the French Republic. There they promoted French Revolutionary values. While returning from a carriage ride in the Corso on 13 January 1793, they displayed the flag of the Republic on their coach and were attacked by a mob. They tried to take refuge in the house of a French banker but the mob entered and one of them killed Bassville. The print shows the house of the banker with smashed windows, and the widow of Bassville (Marie Catherine Colson) begging for her life (Revolutionsalmanach von 1794, loc. cit., and Michelet, Histoire de la Révolution française, book X, chapter 2)